Anja Baumhoff - The Token Woman Master, 1999

A chapter in the Personalities section of the Bauhaus book, edited by Jeannine Fielder and Peter Feierabend, published by Könemann.

The Token Woman Master

Anja Baumhoff

The names of Bauhaus masters such as Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe have lost none of their renown over the years, and continue to reflect this fame on the school itself. The names of famous women however, are scarcely to be found. After examining the policies of the school toward its students, the question arises how the Bauhaus treated its female staff, and whether the school was able to attract not only the leading men of their time but also the most talented women. As we know, contemporary artists such as Sonia Delaunay, Sophie Täuber-Arp, Eileen Gray, Ljubov Popova, Maria Likarz and Hannah Höch did not teach at the Bauhaus, and on taking a closer look at the situation it must be admitted that the Bauhaus was astonishingly conventional in its attitudes to the sexes.

Let us remember that the Bauhaus did not have professors but masters - form masters, work masters and lastly young masters. The most talented Bauhaus students, who were expected to be able to combine theory and practice in a new style and manner, were nominated young masters, and were supported by the school, and embodied it. Out of all the young masters there was only one woman, and this was Gunta Stölzl. Weaving had been designated as a woman's area, and only for this reason did it appear legitimate for a woman to be in charge. But even this was not a foregone conclusion.

Gunta Stölzl had been with the Bauhaus in its earliest days, and had made herself indispensable in many different areas of the school's operation. However, she was not nominated or selected by the council of masters. The Bauhaus had never planned to entrust the leadership of a workshop to the hands of a woman. Some six years, or 12 semesters after she entered the school, she was accorded the position of work master. She performed a really demanding job managing the workshop's move from Weimar to Dessau. The form master of the workshop, the painter Georg Muche, was theoretically responsible, but Gunta Stölzl complained to a friend: "When I took on my teaching post in 1925, the first task to confront me was to completely organize the equipment for the weaving workshop.... Herr Muche took little interest in this practical side of the weaving workshop" (letter to Frau Aichele, March 29, 1971). The Women Weavers reproached Muche for his lack of interest in the weaving workshop, and with the move to Dessau they began to demand that a different person should hold the post. Ise Gropius noted in her diary (entry for June 16, 1925): "The weaving workshop is demanding that Gunta Stölzl functions as its head and is recognized as such. Another storm of protest against the masters." A year later, in June of 1926, Georg Muche decided to give in his notice. However, he remained at the school on full salary until July of 1927. This generosity is all the more surprising, since many women weavers in the workshop were either unpaid, or poorly paid and on short-term contracts. Gunta Stölzl herself only had a three-month contract initially, until her position improved as a young master. Even then her new contract offered no rights to a studio, nor to child allowance or pension. Muche's exceptionally cushioned departure from the Bauhaus stands out in contrast.

Obtaining the master's post demonstrated the power of the women weavers, and to have given in to them was certainly a clever move. The existence of just one female form master showed that women were not barred from chances of promotion at the Bauhaus. Gunta Stölzl was the token, to show other women that it could happen, and this headed off any further dissatisfaction. The women weavers competed among themselves for sought-after positions in the weaving workshop, as there were few other opportunities available at the Bauhaus at that time for gifted women students.

Another woman master was Lily Reich, though she was active at the Bauhaus for such a short time that she had little influence. An experienced machine embroiderer, she took over the running of the workshop on January 5, 1932 from Otti Berger, another woman member of the Bauhaus, who had been acting head until then. Even if it might be thought that Reich gained this position because she was the personal partner of Mies van der Rohe, in fact her qualifications fully justified her in her own right with a reputation in decoration, interior design and fashion. She was also the first woman member of the board of the German Werkbund. It is, however, difficult to see the appointment of Lily Reich as a really practical decision.

As head of the new “Extension” department, into which the weaving workshop had to be integrated, there was hardly time for her to have any great effect. In the winter semester of the same year the Bauhaus moved to Berlin, where the school attempted in vain to establish itself in an old telephone factory in Steglitz.

In retrospect, Gunta Stölzl remains the only woman young master in the history of the Bauhaus, although her deputies could all in principle have filled a leading post. Both Otti Berger and Grete Reichardt set up workshops independently later on; Anni Albers and Margarete Leischner began to teach after emigrating. Many of the other women weavers found it difficult to find a suitable business outlet. If the Bauhaus had openly promoted its discriminatory policy, perhaps frank discussions could have been held on the board's attitude. Instead of this, each woman's career experience in the school was completely individual, as the institution's policy aims and a subtle dissembling rendered any discrimination against women almost invisible.